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When they finally fell against each other for sleep, Frankie ran through every second of the past few hours in his mind so that he wouldn’t forget even a moment of their first of many more nights together.
Chapter6
Diego
Diego couldn’t thinkof a better way to describe the next three months other than “honeymoon fueled senioritis.”
As winter descended upon the city, Frankie and Diego stayed warm by spending multiple hours every night tangled together in bed. While Diego had always thought he was versatile in the bedroom, there was something about reducing his mouthy, cocky boyfriend to whimpers and moans that he couldn’t seem to get enough of. Frankie was a fast learner, and he figured out how to get Diego off with his knee, his fingers, and eventually with his mouth on Diego’s bio dick. He even purchased a dildo with a vibrating harness attachment for Diego to use.
In one way, this helped Diego experience gender euphoria like he’d never known before. On days when they were just lounging around, Diego didn’t feel the need to wear a packer anymore. Unfortunately, this kept him from wanting to explore bottoming for Frankie, even though Frankie had hinted he was interested multiple times.
Meanwhile, everything had come together for the cafe by mid-February, and there was nothing left to do except advertise and wait for the final construction to be completed. Thus, Diego found himself with extra time on his hands. He began spending more time with some of his other friends, and Frankie got to take a breath and spend some more time with his sister.
Diego couldn’t shake his anxiety about dating his business partner, even if Frankie was first and foremost his best friend of several years. Diego truly believed in both their relationship and their business but there was a constant niggling doubt in the back of his head that people would think one or both was a fraud. Obie and Seth obviously knew, and he told his cousin Sofia, but otherwise, it seemed like they were letting people come to their own conclusions.
They hadn’t talked about it again after they first got together. Diego wondered if part of the reason Frankie was so okay about keeping their relationship private was the distance Diego held between himself and his family, and the fact that Frankie didn’t seem too eager to tell his parents either. Diego told him multiple times they could tell Penelope, especially as she became more of an integral part of their launch team. One night as they were lying tangled together in bed, Frankie admitted he was nervous about having people question their legitimacy as business partners because of their relationship. He wanted them to open the cafe and prove themselves first.
This led to their slow-rolling other parts of their relationship like going on dates and really experiencing the “get to know you” phase of their relationship even though they already knew each other pretty damn well. Neither of them seemed too eager to air their relationship in public when they could just lounge around the house in their pjs, feeding each other takeout and perfecting the final recipes for the cafe. Diego didn’t want to doanythingother than lounge with Frankie, basking in the feeling of finally being open about how much he cared about his best friend and roommate. This included his not really wanting to go to work, and based on the dwindling number of deliveries Frankie was making, Diego assumed his partner felt the same. Hence, the general feeling of senioritis while being sequestered in their honeymoon suite.
Things changed as opening day approached. They went from spending hours in bed together to spending barely six hours in bed sleeping each night. Diego was still working full-time at the bar while Frankie began taking weird shifts, such as the prime cookie and pizza delivery time of eight to twelve pm. It turned out that drunk twenty-somethings tipped a lot, so Frankie was able to contribute his fair share to the rent and loan payments by working off hours. Even though Diego missed Frankie in his arms and in their bed, he kept quiet as the day of their launch approached.
* * *
“Everyone has their marching orders,right? And at least one person knows how to takeactualorders?” Frankie asked as he raced past Diego with yet another tray piled high with baked goods.
Diego had watched Frankie stress bake for almost four hours the night before, while he, Obie, and Seth finished setting the tables with fresh-cut flowers and little dishes of multiple types of sweeteners. They had a coffee station decked out with six flavors of syrup, both with sugar and without, as well as cinnamon, cocoa powder, and flaked sea salt. In Diego’s mind, this was more than enough, but Frankie had awakened in a cold sweat over the weekend and announced they needed to have sugar packets on all the tables in case anyone came in who might have a hard time getting to the coffee station.
Seth and Penelope had stayed until midnight helping with the finishing touches while Obie went home to sleep. He would be helping staff the cafe all of opening week while Seth and Penelope were only able to take two alternating days off work.
“We’re all set, Franklin,” Diego called affectionately as Frankie finished placing the last guava pastry on the display shelf and practically sprinted back to the kitchen.
“This is truly so incredible, guys,” Penelope said, tears filling her eyes as she looked around the shop.
It really was. The cafe was understated, but very clearly inclusive with the flags for Black Lives Matter, trans pride, and omnisexual pride hanging inside and the progress flag hanging outside the front door.
It had taken them a while, but they’d finally settled on a name for the cafe. The Rainbow Bean: An Inclusive Café. Diego reached out to a classmate from grad school who specialized in graphic design, and they got a great price on their logo.
Frankie had bought little mini flags on stanchions for all four countries whose coffee they were currently stocking, and he planned to switch them out each time they debuted a new brand. Diego had made sure that Colombia was among them.
The tables were all wrought iron and painted white by Frankie and Diego’s very own hands. Thathad been a test of their newly forming relationship. Never paint with a partner. Apparently, Frankie thought Diego painted the legs wrong, and Diego was relatively sure Frankie was doing something weird with the paint on the seats of the chairs, but in the end, they had turned out great and made the cafe feel open and bright.
“Ladies and gentlemen, gays and theys, the doors open in five minutes!” Seth crowed from where he was hanging up a “grand opening” sign behind the coffee bar.
Penelope got a strange look on her face. Diego tried to find room in his hectic brain to mention it to Frankie later, but it immediately slipped his mind as Frankie hustled back into the room with a tray of chocolate chip cookies.
“Que—”Diego said, stopping himself before the endearment could accidentally slip out. Thankfully, his utterance turned into the word “what.”
“I thought we could give away free cookies today, and then hopefully people will like my baking enough to spend money on the pastries next time. Or maybe they’ll want to grab some to go.” Frankie quickly began moving cookies onto a plate Diego hadn’t noticed was situated directly next to the register.
Diego wanted to kiss him, but he settled on brushing his fingers gently over the back of Frankie’s hand as he removed the empty tray from his grasp. “That’s a great idea.”
“There is ahugecrowd outside!” Obie announced as he bustled in the front door. He was wearing what Diego could only describe as a peacock jumpsuit with fake peacock feathers designed to look like shoulder pads.
He had been running around the neighborhood putting up Grand Opening signs and posters. His cheeks were flushed, and his lips were chapped, but Diego didn’t think he’d ever seen him look so happy.
“It’s all coming to fruition, love. You and Penelope and the boys did such an amazing job,” Seth said, bending down to give him a sound kiss and a quick hug.
Diego cast Frankie a longing look, which he returned with a soft smile, and Diego quickly escaped into the back with the empty tray. When he returned, he found Frankie sobbing into Penelope’s shoulders. He nearly ran over to them before he saw the smile on both their tear stained faces. When Frankie pulled away, he was wearing the silly lanyard he’d bought for both of them to wear with name tags, but now it had a gay pride flag pinned to it.
